1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of communication systems. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to a method and system for measuring market information for wireless telecommunication devices.
2. Background Art
The increasing competition in telecommunications market has increased the need for competitive performance data that includes market share information for manufacturers of wireless devices, market share information for a given model of a wireless device, and market information for the number of unsold wireless devices for a given model and a given manufacturer. Competitive performance data can be used by manufacturers of wireless devices to launch efficient marketing campaigns, to efficiently plan capital investments, or for competitive analysis, to name a few. For example, market share information for a wireless device manufacturer (e.g., cell phones, blackberries, and personal digital assistants (PDAs)) in a given geographical market is invaluable in order to effectively launch marketing campaigns or effectively plan for capital investment, to name a few.
In other words, data collection can be used by companies to better understand the structure of their respective market and as a result understand their competitive performance. Understanding competitive performance is an integral part of virtually every business structure, enabling businesses to modify their products and services accordingly to achieve their highest possible efficiency, hence making them more competitive given their available resources. Understanding competitive performance is even more important with regards to manufacturers of wireless devices given the increase in the number of service providers as well as the increase in the number of manufacturers in recent years.
In order to collect data, most telecommunication companies and manufacturers have relied mostly on surveys. Typically, a surveyor must place a call and gather data from customers directly. Other methods for gathering data have been online surveys (e.g., emailing surveys or survey through a website). As a result, most of these methods require a subscribers' participation in the process.
Unfortunately, this manual process is time consuming, expensive and prone to error. For example, customers are often confused about the model and the manufacturer of their particular wireless device, and as a result provide the wrong information (e.g., a customer may provide the name of the wireless service provider instead of the manufacturer of the wireless device). Moreover, this approach is prone to non-response from customers (e.g., ten customers may be called but only three may take the survey). This non-response leads to difficulties in making the response data representative of the population being surveyed. In addition, this approach is expensive and requires significant cost to reach sample sizes that provide accurate information. More importantly, the current approach does not allow communication companies and manufacturers of wireless devices to economically determine changes in their respective market share. For example, the current approach does not allow the manufacturers of wireless devices to measure changes in their market share for a given wireless device model. Similarly, the current approach does not allow the manufacturers of wireless devices to measure changes in their market share regardless of the wireless device model.